This site may be going away; please consider the Donate link above... or LiberaPay:
A huge thank you to all who donated in 2025; 2026 Q1 Web hosting 0 / $400; planning a move to much cheaper hosting this quarter.
This site may be going away; please consider the Donate link above... or LiberaPay:
A huge thank you to all who donated in 2025; 2026 Q1 Web hosting 0 / $400; planning a move to much cheaper hosting this quarter.
The fashionable theme, the go. The Crack Lay, of late is used, in the cant language, to signify the art and mystery of house-breaking.
Definition taken from The 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue, originally by Francis Grose.
To Crack * CrackerNathan Bailey's 1736 Dictionary of canting and thieving slang
John S. Farmer's collection of canting songs and slang rhymes
Buy a modern reprint of this book from Amazon CA; US;
Francis Grose was independently wealthy, having inherited money from his father, a jeweller. Finding himself overspending, he published a number of books; his Provincial Glossary seems to have been the starting-point for the Vulgar Tongue reproduced here.